Seen From Space: Curiosity’s Abandoned Parachute Still Flapping in the Wind on Mars

NASA’s Mars machines continue to work in beautiful tandem as seen in this image, where the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE camera captured the changing conditions of the landing parachute that brought the Curiosity rover safely to the ground nine months ago.

This latest animation consists of seven images taken from August to January showing the parachute blowing around in the wind. You can see the suspension lines that still hold the chute to Curiosity’s back shell, the bright shape in the upper half of the images. The parachute was the biggest ever used on another planet, and had a 15-meter diameter when fully open. Movement of the object in the wind continuously kicks off dust that would otherwise accumulate, helping to explain why the parachute from Viking 1 can still be seen from space nearly 40 years after it landed.